On 6 August 2025, the High Court handed down the decision of Helensburgh Coal Pty Ltd v Bartley [2025] HCA 29 (Helensburgh Coal Decision), paving the way for the Fair Work Commission to make inquiries into whether an employer could make changes to its workforce, particularly with respect to its use of contractors (including
The shift in delivering renewable energy projects away from engaging a single contractor who takes full responsibility for the engineering, procurement, and construction aspects of a project (EPC contract model) to instead developers contracting directly with multiple specialised contractors for separate packages of work (split contract model) raises interesting issues concerning satisfying the principal contractor
Welcome to our WHS Law Briefing. This briefing identifies key issues and emerging trends in WHS Law, and details significant legislative and case law developments from February to date in July 2025. Please contact our national WHS team if you would like to discuss any of the matters in this briefing or would like
This is co-authored by Harry Kinkead.
The Victorian Government is on the brink of finalising new regulations addressing psychological health, which will soon mandate written “prevention plans” for managing psychosocial hazards in workplaces. This development follows a comprehensive four-year process and is likely to take effect on 1 December 2025.
The forthcoming psychological health
There is much speculation as to the future of diversity, equity and inclusion programs in Australian businesses given recent political and workplace discussions at home and abroad.
While much of the speculation about Australian businesses appears to be focussing on political values and the “business case” for or against diversity programs, it is critical
In this article we explore four of the key issues and trends affecting organisations globally from a work health and safety perspective, both now and in the future: global WHS regulation; the rise of technology; changing workforce populations and structures; and psychosocial hazards and risks.
In examining these trends, we have been struck by
The Australian Government has recently approved a new Code of Practice – Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work under section 274 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Cth). The new Code is largely based on Safe Work Australia’s model code of practice of the same name, but there are some important differences.
A summary
Queensland’s new state government has moved urgently to make changes to the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld) (WHS Act). We set out below a summary of the changes which were passed by Parliament late on Thursday 28 November 2024 and commenced on Friday 29 November 2024.
Only a few
This article was co-authored by Emma Anvari.
A Victorian parliamentary inquiry report published in August 2024 concerning workplace drug testing (the Report) contains key recommendations relating to medicinal cannabis for both the Victorian Government and WorkSafe Victoria.
The terms of reference for the Victorian Legislative Council Legal and Social Issues Committee (Committee) included inquiring into the